Can Aspirin Fight Breast Cancer?

Aspirin, already known as an effective way to reduce the risk of colon and rectal cancer as well as heart disease, may also be helpful in preventing breast cancer.Researchers revealed their positive findings of a 1-year study on the correlation between aspirin and other nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory (NSAID) drug use and breast cancer risk.

They monitored the progress of 1,442 female breast cancer patients and 1,420 females without the disease on Long Island, NY, between 1996 and 1997. The study population was predominantly white (93 percent of cancer patients and 91.8 percent of controls).

The findings: 20.9 percent of the cancer patients and 24.3 percent of the controls reported using aspirin or another NSAID at least once a week for 6 months or longer. Based on the progress of the patients, researchers found an overall inverse association of 0.8 between the use of aspirin and breast cancer risk in relation to nonusers. The women who benefited the most from aspirin use were those that took 7 or more tablets per week for less than 5 years, leading the researchers to believe that use of aspirin within 2 to 5 years of diagnosis is the critical period for an effect.

In addition to these findings, the compiled data suggests that aspirin use has added benefit for those with estrogen-receptor (ER) positive cancer--a cancer in which the increased presence of estrogen hormones allows the tumor to grow. Researchers believe frequent use of aspirin and NSAIDs prevent the synthesis of prostaglandins, which would reduce the amount of estrogen being created, thereby reducing the growth of ER-positive cancer.

Researchers also found a link between the reduction of breast cancer risk and the use of ibuprofen, but results were weaker than that of aspirin. Acetaminophen was found to have no effect on prostaglandin production.

The study concluded that the relationship between aspirin and ER-positive breast cancer would need to be further researched to see if these findings are supported in a larger, more racially and ethnically diverse population. Also, the potential benefits of aspirin use need to be balanced against potential harmful side effects such as peptic ulcer disease and gastrointestinal bleeding.

How is your Family Life Cycle

The emotional and intellectual stages you pass through from childhood to your retirement years as a member of a family are called the family life cycle. A supportive family can profoundly influence your behavior and benefit your development.

The family life cycle consists of several developmental stages:

Independence
Coupling or marriage
Parenting: babies through adolescents
Launching adult children
Retirement or senior stage of life

The stress of daily living or coping with a chronic medical condition or other crisis disrupts the normal family cycle. You can improve your and your family's quality of your life at any stage. Self-examination, education, and perhaps counseling are ways to improve yourself and your family life and can help you manage other issues such as going through a divorce or being a part of a nontraditional family structure.

Drug may counteract down syndrome

Researchers may have finally found a drug candidate for reducing the mental retardation caused by Down syndrome, which afflicts more than 350,000 people in the U.S. Researchers gave low doses of a human drug to mice bred to mimic the learning and memory problems in people with Down syndrome. After as little as two weeks, the impaired mice performed as well as normal ones in learning tests, and the improvement lasted for up to two months after treatment ended.

But there is a catch: the drug was taken off the market 25 years ago after being found to cause dangerous seizures in some people. And many compounds that boost learning in mice fail in human trials.

Nevertheless, "anyone studying Down's is going to have their socks blown off by this," says geneticist Roger Reeves, a Down syndrome specialist at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, who was not involved in the study. "There hasn't been anything out there that we really could take to patients or that we had a strong possibility of taking into the clinic."
Researchers tested the drug, pentylenetetrazole (PTZ), as well as two other compounds—picrotoxin and a gingko biloba extract called bilobalide—because they all interfere with tiny ion channels on brain cells (neurons). When activated, the channels, known as GABAA receptors, inhibit the cells, making it harder for them to form new synapses, or connections, with neighboring neurons.

The deficits of Down syndrome may occur because the brain contains too many such inhibitory signals, says Stanford University neurobiologist Craig Garner, whose group performed the experiments. "In order to learn, you have to have a period during which synapses can get stronger or weaker," he says. "This changing is what's not possible when you have too much inhibition."

So Garner, his student Fabian Fernandez, and their colleagues gave their mice either low doses of PTZ mixed with milk, or low-dose injections of picrotoxin or bilobalide, daily for two to four weeks to slightly raise the level of excitation in the brain. Immediately after treatment, the animals' scores on two memory tests—for recognizing objects they had seen before or remembering how they last entered a maze—were on par with normal mice; two months later, they still did much better than they normally would.

The treatment "is allowing the normal properties of neurons to work," Garner says. "This slowly over time leads to an improved circuit."

Source: www.epsdrugstore.com

FDA mandates stronger warning on asthma drug xolair

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has told the manufacturer of an injected asthma drug to add the strongest warning possible to the medication's label.

The new alert for Xolair (omalizumab), marketed by Genentech Inc., draws attention to anaphylaxis as a potential side effect of the medication.

Anaphylaxis is a sudden, potentially life-threatening allergic reaction that can include trouble breathing, tightness in the chest, dizziness, fainting, itching and hives and swelling of the mouth and throat

The FDA has also asked Genentech to update the existing label warning and to provide a Patient Medication Guide with a strengthened warning for anaphylaxis.

Experts did not think the action would affect prescribing patterns greatly, however.
"It is probably going to affect prescribing in a very minor way," said Dr. Andrew Colin, director of pediatric pulmonology at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. "This cannot be viewed as a routine medication at this point in time. It's reserved for the severe or resistant patient, so I do not think that these extra precautions are really going to have a huge impact."
"It's still a valuable drug and, like any drug, people can become allergic and have anaphylaxis," added Dr. Len Horovitz, a pulmonary specialist with Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. "That's not really a shock here."

Xolair was approved in 2003 to treat adults and adolescents 12 years and older with moderate to severe persistent allergic asthma whose symptoms can't be fully controlled with inhaled steroids.

Some 17 million American adults and children suffer from asthma, 60 percent of them from allergic asthma.
According to one study, adding Xolair to a patient's medication regimen helps cut emergency medical visits. It also decreases the rate of asthma exacerbations.
Persistent asthma (as opposed to intermittent asthma) carries a high risk of exacerbations and the need for resultant medical treatment.

In some people, asthma is caused by an allergic reaction gone awry: The immune system stimulates the production of IgE antibodies. Subsequent exposure to the allergen or allergens causes the IgE antibodies to set off an inflammatory response, which leads to the wheezing and other breathing difficulties associated with asthma.

Xolair is a monoclonal antibody that interrupts this potentially life-threatening process at the start. It is the first biologic approved for asthma, and is given by injection once a month.
The drug already has a black box warning for a possible raised risk for malignancies, although that link is not definite, Horovitz said.

Source: www.epsdrugstore.com

Scientists Boost Production of Cheap Malaria Drugs

Scientists have developed ways of increasing the artemisinin yield from the herb Artemisia annua by specifying optimal growing conditions and improving the extraction process. The two developments could bring down the price of artemisinin-based drugs recommended by the World Heath Organization to treat malaria. Over 100 countries use it to fight malaria parasites that have become resistant to the drug chloroquine.

A study, published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry this week (13 February), found that growing Artemisia annua in fertiliser-poor "acidic soils with a mild potassium deficiency" increased the yield of artemisinin by 20 per cent.

Synthesising artemisinin in the lab produces yields lower than four per cent, so the plant is the only commercial source of the compound.

This could lead to cheaper drugs, as well as benefiting small-scale farmers who have no choice but to grow their crops in poor soils. The economic gains are clear for farmers who could make "savings in potassium, gains in artemisinin production", said the study's author, Jorge Ferreira of the US-based Appalachian Farming Systems Research Center.

Pedro Melillo, a horticulturalist from the State University of Campinas, Sao Paulo, Brazil, welcomed the news saying potassium is one of the most expensive fertilisers in Brazil. He told SciDev.Net that the cultivation method could help develop a strategy for using Artemisia annua as a traditional herbal tea to tackle malaria for poor communities who cannot access or afford to pay for antimalarial products developed by the pharmaceutical industry.

A separate study explored new technologies to make extracting artemisinin cheaper and more environmentally friendly. The current process uses the solvent hexane, which is both highly toxic and explosive. Researchers at the UK-based University of Bath examined alternative extraction technologies using the non-flammable solvents supercritical carbon dioxide, hydrofluorocarbon, ionic liquids or ethanol.

They found that these alternative solvents gave faster extraction times and a more complete extraction of the useful substances in the Artemisia annua leaf. The study was published in the Journal of Natural Products in November.

More Teens Abusing Prescription Drugs

American teens are cutting back on their use of marijuana, but their abuse of prescription drugs in recent years has stayed the same or increased.

From 2002 to 2005, rates of marijuana use declined from 30.1 percent to 25.8 percent. Over that same period, the use of the prescription painkiller OxyContin increased from 2.7 percent to 3.5 percent, and the use of Vicodin, another painkiller, increased from 6 percent to 6.3 percent, the Associated Press reported.

Teens are also abusing anti-anxiety drugs like Xanax and stimulants like Adderall, Walters said. Overall, 2.1 million American teens abused prescription drugs in 2005.

Teens are abusing prescription drugs, because they believe they're safer than street drugs, and they're also easier to obtain, according to Walters. He said many teens get prescription drugs over the Internet, from friends, or steal them from household medicine cabinets, the AP reported.

"The drug dealer is us," Walters said, adding that adults need to keep track of prescription drugs and dispose of them properly when the drugs expire.

The report is based on the 2005 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, a survey of 68,308 families, and the 2005 Monitoring the Future Survey of 50,000 eighth-, 10th- and 12th-graders conducted by the University of Michigan.

The findings mirror two studies released last week. The first found that, despite media reports of addicts getting prescription painkillers such as OxyContin from the Internet, most of them are actually getting these drugs from family, friends or dealers.

Dandruff

What is dandruff?
Dandruff is a sloughing of the skin on the scalp that leads to white flakes on the head, neck, and shoulders.

What causes dandruff?
Dandruff is thought to be caused by a form of a skin condition called eczema, which causes increased shedding of normal scalp skin cells. Hormonal or seasonal changes may make dandruff worse.

What are the symptoms?
Common symptoms of dandruff include white, oily-looking flakes of dead skin in your hair and on your shoulders and an itchy, scaling scalp. Your scalp can be either excessively dry or oily.

How is it treated?
Home treatment is often effective in preventing and getting rid of the symptoms of dandruff.
Use an antidandruff shampoo. A variety of shampoos are available, containing different ingredients. Trying several will help you find out which antidandruff shampoo is most effective for you. Shampoo daily to prevent your scalp from accumulating dead cells. If an antidandruff shampoo helps stop dandruff for a while but the dandruff problem returns, rotate shampoos.

Consider alternating antidandruff shampoos with regular ones if you are concerned about the effects of antidandruff shampoos' harsh chemicals on your hair. Rub your scalp. When you wash your hair, lather once, rinse, then lather a second time and rub your scalp vigorously as you shampoo. This will help dislodge excess cells. Be careful not to rub so energetically that you damage your scalp. Let it soak. After you lather the second time, let the medicated shampoo sit on your head for 5 minutes. This will give the antidandruff shampoo time to work. Rinse well. This will help get rid of all the cells you have loosened up during shampooing.

Source: www.medical-health-care-information.com

A Healthy Heart

Your heart is an amazing organ. It continuously pumps oxygen and nutrient-rich blood throughout your body to sustain life. This fist-sized powerhouse beats (expands and contracts) 100,000 times per day, pumping five or six quarts of blood each minute, or about 2000 gallons per day.

How Does Blood Travel Through the Heart?
As the heart beats, it pumps blood through a system of blood vessels, called the circulatory system. The vessels are elastic tubes that carry blood to every part of the body.
Blood is essential. In addition to carrying fresh oxygen from the lungs and nutrients to your body's tissues, it also takes the body's waste products, including carbon dioxide, away from the tissues. This is necessary to sustain life and promote the health of all the body's tissues.
There are three main types of blood vessels:

Arteries.They begin with the aorta, the large artery leaving the heart. Arteries carry oxygen-rich blood away from the heart to all of the body's tissues. They branch several times, becoming smaller and smaller as they carry blood farther from the heart and into organs.

Capillaries. These are small, thin blood vessels that connect the arteries and the veins. Their thin walls allow oxygen, nutrients, carbon dioxide and other waste products to pass to and from our organ's cells.

Veins. These are blood vessels that take blood back to the heart; this blood lacks oxygen (oxygen-poor) and is rich in waste products that are to be excreted or removed from the body. Veins become larger and larger as they get closer to the heart. The superior vena cava is the large vein that brings blood from the head and arms to the heart, and the inferior vena cava brings blood from the abdomen and legs into the heart.

This vast system of blood vessels -- arteries, veins and capillaries -- is over 60,000 miles long. That's long enough to go around the world more than twice!
Blood flows continuously through your body's blood vessels. Your heart is the pump that makes it all possible.

Dengue

Dengue is a flu-like viral disease spread by the bite of infected mosquitoes. Dengue hemorrhagic fever is a severe, often fatal, complication of dengue. Caused by one of four closely related virus serotypes of the genus Flavivirus, family Flaviviridae, each serotype is sufficiently different that there is no cross-protection and epidemics caused by multiple serotypes (hyperendemicity) can occur. Dengue is transmitted to humans by the mosquito Aedes aegypti.
Symptoms of dengue can be combination ocombination of associated abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting or diarrhea.
Treatment :
There is no specific treatment for dengue. Persons with dengue fever should rest and drink plenty of fluids. They should be kept away from mosquitoes for the protection of others.

Dieting With Diabetes? Watch Out!

When you have diabetes and start a diet, controlling blood sugar levels is vital.

You have diabetes and you're ready to lose weight. First up: Be prepared to monitor your blood sugar carefully.

That's because changes in your eating pattern - and weight loss itself -- affect your blood sugar level, so you'll probably need changes in your diabetes medicines.

"Diabetes is about balance - balancing food, activity, insulin, pills every single day," says Larry C. Deeb, MD, a diabetes specialist in Tallahassee, Fla. and president-elect of the American Diabetes Association.

"As you ratchet down calories, as you lose weight, you'll ratchet down insulin and medications," says Deeb.

Losing weight, after all, means making changes in eating and exercise patterns - and that affects everything in your diabetes treatment.

If you're starting a weight loss plan, now is the time to make sure you know how to spot and deal with low blood sugar (hypoglycemia) and high blood sugar (hyperglycemia).
Low blood sugar (hypoglycemia). Blood sugar levels below 70 occur when your insulin level is higher than your body needs. This is common when people lose weight because cutting calories affects blood sugar levels.

If you don't reduce your insulin dosage to compensate for the calorie shift, you'll risk low blood sugar, whose early warning stages include:
Confusion
Dizziness
Shakiness
Be vigilant. In its later stages, low blood sugar can be very dangerous -- possibly causing fainting, even coma.
High blood sugar (hyperglycemia). Blood sugar levels above 240 can develop when your insulin level is too low to control blood sugar. This leads to ketosis, a condition in which you're unable to use glucose for energy, so your body switches to burning fat instead.

In ketosis, fat is converted to ketones which get into your blood and your urine. Glucose also builds in your blood and spills into your urine -- pulling water from your body and causing dehydration, a potentially life-threatening condition.

"Ketosis decreases oxygen delivery to the tissues, which puts stress on eyes, kidneys, heart, liver," says Christine Gerbstadt, MD, MPH, RD, LDN, a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association and a diabetes specialist in Philadelphia.

That's why a low-carb, high-protein diet, like Atkins, for example, is not really safe for people with diabetes, says Gerbstadt. "Diabetics need to try to stick with a more balanced diet so your body can handle nutrients without going into ketosis."
If your blood sugar level is under control, hyperglycemia or ketosis isn't a risk, Deeb explains.

Controlling Your Blood Sugar

Before starting a diet, talk to your doctor and a dietitian about blood sugar management, Deeb advises.
"You'll need to know how to alter your insulin and medication based on what you're eating and whether you're exercising more. That's the safest way to lose weight."
Regularly testing your blood glucose levels is critical, adds Gerbstadt. Check it every morning when you wake up and shortly before you eat a meal, she advises.

A red flag: If you're fasting blood sugar in the morning is below 60 or 70 consistently, call your doctor or diabetes educator. That means you need to cut back on medication or insulin, Gerbstadt advises.

Naltrexone also Treats Crohn's Disease

A study by Penn State College of Medicine finds that naltrexone may be beneficial to people with Crohn's disease. A low dose of this drug is often used to bring relief to victims of alcohol and drug addiction.

Crohn’s disease is a chronic inflammatory disorder of the intestine that affects an estimated 500,000 Americans. The study results were released online this week in an early edition of the American Journal of Gastroenterology.

A team of researchers led by gastroenterologist Jill P. Smith, M.D., and Ian S. Zagon, Ph.D., Distinguished Professor of neural and behavioral sciences, at the College of Medicine and Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, received NIH funding last summer to initiate a phase 2 trial of low-dose naltrexone and Crohn's.

In the pilot study, patients with diagnosed Crohn's disease were treated with a low dose of naltrexone and monitored for improvement of symptoms for 12 weeks. Quality of life surveys were given every four weeks for 16 weeks. The results, published this week, show that 89 percent of participants showed an improvement with therapy, while 67 percent achieved remission of symptoms. The only side effect to treatment was sleep disturbance in some patients.

Typical treatment for Crohn's involves using steroids or corticosteroids, which suppress the immune system and can have other toxic side effects. Treatment is often time-intensive and expensive, as well.

'This is a novel approach to treating a common disease, and it's simple, it's safe, and it costs far less than current standards of treatment,' Smith said. 'We don't yet know the exact mechanisms involved in how it works, but we're working on that, as well.'

Anemia-Types & Causes

Anemia is a lower than normal number of red blood cells (erythrocytes) in the blood, usually measured by a decrease in the amount of hemoglobin. Hemoglobin is the red pigment in red blood cells that transports oxygen.
Anemia can be confirmed by a red blood count or hemoglobin level.
There are many types and potential causes of anemia:

Anemia - B12 deficiency
Anemia - folate deficiency
Anemia - iron deficiency
Anemia due to chronic disease Hemolytic
Pernicious anemia
Secondary aplastic anemia
Sickle cell anemia

Certain chronic infections and inflammatory diseases cause several changes in the blood production (hematopoietic) system. These include a slightly shortened red blood cell life span and an isolation of iron in inflammatory cells (macrophages) that result in a decrease in the amount of iron available to make red blood cells. In the presence of these effects, a low-to-moderate grade anemia develops. The symptoms of the anemia may go unnoticed in the face of the primary disease.

with the type of anemia it causes varies. Potential causes include blood loss, nutritional deficits, many diseases, medication reactions, and various problems with the bone marrow. Iron deficiency anemia is most common in women who have heavy menstrual periods.
anemia can cause low oxygen levels in vital organs such as the heart and can lead to heart attack.

Why Are You Stressed

Stress is all around us. From taking a test to dealing with a cranky customer service representative, dealing with the loss of a loved one, stress is impossible to avoid. It can be acute, such as the stress that occurs in the face of immediate danger, or it can be chronic when a person is dealing with a long -term stressful situation It’s an inevitable and normal part of our daily lives. But over time, its effects can be quite taxing. Stress becomes a problem when you feel overwhelmed by its challenges.

Researchers have found that there are significant biological changes that take place in the body in times of stress. And extended periods of stress can cause destructive changes in the body such as depression and a suppressed immune system, which can lead to heart disease, cancer, and stroke. So if you are feeling stressed out, its time to get some relief.

Stress is a normal physical reaction to an internal or external pressure that is placed on your system. People react to most stressful situations with the “fight or flight” response. The body is flooded with stress hormones, making the heart pump faster, the breathing rate increase, and the muscles tense up. This is the body’s way of gearing up for imminent physical activity. For instance, if you are in a minor car accident, your may feel a surge of energy that allows you to escape the car and help others out as well. However, sometimes the stress is emotional rather than physical and the body is not allowed to release the physical tension created by stress hormones. If you’re stuck in a traffic jam and late for a meeting, there is little that you can safely do to release the buildup of stress hormones in your body. Over time, stress can lead to back pain and headaches, raised blood pressure, indigestion, sweating, palpitations, irritability, and anxiety. It can also contribute to the development of such diseases as cold sores, ulcers, and heart disease.

Problem of Ear Infection

Ear infections include a broad range of diseases that can affect any of the ear structures. A middle ear infection (otitis media) is an inflammation or infection of the middle ear and is the focus of this topic. This condition is most common in young children, because their eustachian tubes (the tubes that connect the throat and the middle ear) are shorter, more horizontal, and more easily blocked than those in older children and adults. A middle ear infection frequently occurs along with or after a cold or other upper respiratory infection.

There are two types of ear infections :
*An infection involving the outer parts of the ear, such as "swimmer's ear," is called otitis externa.
*An infection involving the hearing parts of the inner ear is called otitis interna.

causes middle ear infection: A middle ear infection is caused by bacteria or viruses. Often, during a cold or other condition where the eustachian tubes become blocked, the fluid that builds up provides an environment where bacteria or viruses can multiply and cause infection.

The main symptoms of a middle ear infection are fever and earache, which may be severe. Perforation of the eardrum can occur and you may notice thick, yellow drainage from the ear, though not like earwax. Irritability, difficulty sleeping, and loss of hearing are also possible.


For both middle ear infection and fluid buildup without infection, treating the symptoms at home may be all that is needed. Analgesics such as acetaminophen can help to relieve ear pain. However, do not give aspirin to anyone under the age of 20 because its use in this age group has been linked to Reye's syndrome.